In this episode of Not In: All In!, Kirk, Chris, and Dave dissect the fall of Russell Wilson—from Super Bowl champ to Hall of Fame maybe. Is his legacy cooked? Plus, the crew dives into the Kawhi Leonard ownership scandal, Shaduer Sanders’ draft drama, and the shifting tides of sports popularity. From pole vaulting Swedes to Raptors nostalgia, it’s a whirlwind of hot takes and sharp banter.
💥 Topics include:
• Russell Wilson’s fading Hall of Fame case
• Kawhi Leonard’s shady ownership dealings
• Shaduer Sanders’ ego vs. opportunity
• The NBA’s identity crisis
• Sportsman of the Week: Mondo Duplantis
🎧 Subscribe for weekly debates, deep dives, and the occasional rant.
• 00:00 – Intro + Sportsman of the Week: Mondo Duplantis
• 00:58 – Pole vaulting greatness and Swedish trivia
• 03:07 – Russell Wilson’s career obituary
• 05:31 – Hall of Fame debate: stats vs. stink
• 08:28 – Chris’s 48/52 Hall of Fame odds
• 10:21 – Richard Sherman’s shade + Tony Gonzalez’s take
• 13:30 – Comparing Russ to Rivers, Ryan, and McNabb
• 15:19 – Shaduer Sanders draft drama
• 18:36 – Vince Carter parallels + NIL ego check
• 22:12 – NFL systems vs. freestyle college play
• 27:05 – Bronny James praise + humility in legacy
• 30:03 – Kawhi Leonard’s ownership scandal exposed
• 33:18 – Ballmer’s billions and NBA silence
• 36:04 – Astros, steroids, and selective punishment
• 40:25 – NBA’s popularity crisis vs. hockey’s rise
• 44:24 – Plug for the United States Athletic Hall of Fame
• 45:57 – Final thoughts + existential outro
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[Music] Welcome everyone to another episode of Not in All-In where we sort of look at uh whatever we want to talk about in the last few days. and I’m Kirk Buckner along with Chris Meridian and Longhorn Dave Whitlock where gentlemen uh I’ve got a few things that I want to talk about before we get there. Dave, do we uh know our sportsman of the week since we last spoke? Yes, we would because we’re recording this on Thursday. We absolutely would. Let me make sure I get the name right because it’s uh Swedish. No, it’s okay. No Swedes watch this based on my analytics, so you can butcher it however you want. That’s right. It is Mondo Duplontis. He uh is the Paul Valter uh of the era if not all time. He said he keeps setting world records after world records of the world athletics championships which I guess athletics is for track and field substitute. But uh in Japan uh he basically once again dominated a finals. He’s he never never loses in the finals. Every time he goes up he’s now up to 6.3 m vault. Uh he’s set the indoor records, the outdoor records. So uh Mandis Duplantis, your sportsman of the week. A skill that will get you sportsman of the week, a gold medal, and nothing else. But it’s still pretty goddamn cool. Uh I have to ask is how many other Swedes have won this? I imagine in hockey a few. Yeah. So I don’t track nationality of players in professional leagues. I only track that of those that represent their country. Okay. So, he may be the first. Let me do a deep dive and I’ll get back to you. All right. My bad. Sorry. I I didn’t mean to put you on the spot there. No. And for for our American friends here, uh 6.3 meters is just over 20 and a half feet. So, it’s like two stories. Exactly. I want to go back to that Nate Baretti uh thing on Saturday Night Live, which is so true. Which was which one? Oh, he b he basically it was he pretended he was George Washington and he said, “I have a dream.” And he was sort of like talking about how the Americans sort of created their own version of a metric system. That makes no sense. He is the second Swedish sportsman of the week after Hinrich Stenson in golf. He probably won what appears to be the Open Championship in 2016. Before it’s over, uh, let me know if Daniel Alfredson ever won anything from from the Ottawa Senators because that was somebody I was a big fan of back when I was big in Ottawa. But anyh who anyhoo, I’ve got a few things topics that we’re going to do. You you all know what they are. And we’re going to start off with an obituary. It is the professional career of Russell Wilson. It has come to an end. Uh he’s got one Super Bowl win and one bad Pete Carroll call or one bad interception away from what was probably a Hall of Fame career. I have gone on record. I will say this here. I don’t know if I’ve said that to the two of you here, but I honestly believe that that choice by not giving it to Marawn may have cost Pete Carol, Marshon Lynch, and Russell Wilson a Super Bowl or sorry, a Hall of Fame well, a Super Bowl end a Hall of Fame birth. I I truly believe that. Uh it was one of those cases where we’ve seen coaches get too cute. But as we’re standing right now, Russell, as we all know, signed a giant contract with Denver that did not work out. Denver bought him out. He went to Pittsburgh for one year who didn’t resign him, even though Wilson was a Pro Bowl selection last year. Make that make sense. Tyler Huntley, but okay. And he is the first casualty of that should be a game. You know what we should do next year? We’re gonna do a pool. Each each one of us is gonna pick a quarterback who will be the first one incumbent to get kicked off a job. I think we all would have picked Joe Flacco. I know I would have, but it’s not Joe. Uh, and obviously injuries don’t count, but it’s Russ. He’s done. He’s cooked. His one good game was against a very bad Dallas defense who I know Chris is as a Packers fan is very happy to see on Sunday night, but we’re wrapping it up with 46,913 passing yards, which doesn’t seem like a lot. I do like his 35314 uh touchdown interception ratio, but let’s remember he was a hybrid quarterback. 5556 uh rushing yards with 31 touchdowns. Is he a Hall of Famer? And how much? And if he is, can he overcome the stink of basically being rejected by three teams? McNab could not from one team. Well, two really, but floor is yours, gentlemen. Yeah. So, yeah. Um, you know, we got to being here in um in Wisconsin, we got to see the final college season of Russell Wilson as he transferred up uh from North Carolina State and he more or less led the uh Badgers to a Roseb um appearance that season. Um, again, it was a quirky play at the end of the game where he uh rather than taking the shot at the end zone as the clock was quickening down tried to um spike the ball to to stop the clock and didn’t have enough time. So, they um they were driving down, they could have had a chance to to have a Rose Bowl win there, but they didn’t. Um but that helped propel him into, I believe, a fourth round selection for Seattle. Um, so he wasn’t like a uh, you know, first first round quarterback. So he really kind of fought a little bit of an uphill battle from the start. And if you just base his Hall of Fame candidacy on his time in Seattle, the answer is yes. But we don’t get to just decide that uh, which one which seasons we’re going to um, consider the the Denver Mess. Um I think his first year there was with uh Nathaniel Hackett as a first time in over his head head coach. Um then Shawn Payeyton came in and it was pretty clear that uh Payton wanted to completely rebuild the Broncos in his image causing the uh the massive buyout and uh dead cap hit for the for the Broncos. went on, like I said, to to Pittsburgh last year. Wasn’t horrible, but um obviously couldn’t convince them to not go out and sign another geriatric over the hill um noodle arm quarterback. Um and then on to uh on to New York this year, which uh you know, they were they were uh desperate. Tommy Devito did not turn out to be the answer out there after Daniel Jones um took his uh MVP talents over to Indianapolis. So, could be could be. Yeah. Hey, a topic for another show. Um it’s disappointing really. I I think he may have laid himself out of a Hall of Fame career. I really do. Um he’s going to be a guy that’s always there, always on the ballot. probably he’ll be a finalist at some point. And if he makes it, it’ll be because of a week um first ballot class where they just kind of maybe clean up the ballot a little bit. You know, one of those years he’s got 20 chances. Um, so anything’s possible. I But, um, I would say I would put him at about a, you know, 48% chance to 52, you know, on the on the other side of the the chance there. Interesting. Okay, Dave. Yeah, pretty much the same comments. I It’s an interesting question. Hall of Fame careers in general, what is the end of your career when you tail off and just aren’t the same and accumulate some numbers? You know, the touchdowns you mentioned, all that stuff, it all adds up. It doesn’t go in the other direction. Some of the percentages can if you throw more interceptions than touchdowns or like in a baseball player, your batting average goes down or basketball, your points per game goes down, that type of thing. But I never felt like in the hype of the Seattle Seahawks peak that this is going to be a game where you have Russell Wilson against another quarterback, be it Aaron Rogers, Tom Brady, whoever it might be. It was always the Seattle defense against Tom Brady, Pton Manning, whoever they were playing in those Super Bowls and otherwise. I the stats are certainly there for him. I think we need to couch stats a little bit in today’s pass happy era. They’ve cleaned up rules to where quarterbacks can pretty much sit back there more comfortably and receivers can’t be touched and things like that. But it’s all good and fine. And we’ve had debates before on Football Hall of Fame about, you know, Ken Anderson for the Bengals, one of the great players of his era. The numbers will never stack up against the current guys, but somebody who is always, you know, they’re leading the league and and among the leaders, but won’t be considered for the Hall of Fame. So, I’m a solid no, I’m on the Hall of Fame. uh watched or I saw a tweet of some of the pregame comments tonight as we’re recording this on Thursday Night Football that you know Russell Wilson according Tony Gonzalez was saying uh he played himself out of a Hall of Fame. Richard Sherman notes that he’s uh about 11 and 22 since leaving without Seattle’s defenses. Now again, the end of his career when it’s a little bit different when you’re talking about, you know, somebody who’s doesn’t have the athleticism, like you said, Kirk, to escape the pocket like he used to have that running threat. You can look at the receivers he’s had. You could do all kinds of the Giants aren’t a great team. That Broncos team was absolutely awful that one year and and smartly moved on. So, uh, you know, I I just don’t see him as a guy, if you’re talking about, you know, we’ve debated Randall Cunningham before. Now, that was a guy that you that you would turned on the TV to watch play. He was going to do something dynamic. He was going to throw down field. He was going to uh create plays. He, you know, he had a good defense, too. He didn’t make it all the way to the Super Bowl and win. But to me, I’d go for a Randall Cunningham, somebody who is a player like that over somebody Russell Wilson. I don’t want to say a a program type guy or system guy, but uh but but somebody who who did everything right, accumulated lots of yards, had good running backs with him, too. had good weapons around him, take those away. And I just don’t see it as a Hall of Fame career, you know. Interesting you say that. Uh I don’t have Amazon Prime, so I didn’t see the pre-show. Uh I have NFL Plus, so uh when this is all over and the game’s over, I’ll be watching that because I try to watch every game. Uh as you both know, but some of the people watching here may not know, I’ve moved here to Seattle and I always knew that Marshon was the god here. I didn’t realize to what level until I got here. And when you’re seeing how Richard Sherman is kind of it was a backhanded not backhanded, it was a shot at at Russ. Uh Marshon’s been pretty vocal about that and about about his dislike for Russell Wilson in general and the whole the way that sort of like played out. Um, Russ to me is very, very fascinating and somebody who needed more of a legacy. And as you said, Dave, we’ve we’ve talked about Donovan an awful lot. And to watch Russell turn into Donovan 2.0 without the fact where like and Donovan didn’t have the weapons that Russ did. Uh this to me it’s not just obituary for his career. I think it’s an obituary for his legit hall of fame run. Uh I don’t see it happening. I sort of like have done a monitor every year. And when you’re active and you’re trending backwards when people ahead of you are retiring it I it’s it’s it’s not a good sign. I I’m I think also too with quarterbacks, the only position in any major sport that we can talk about, uh I think we all watched Joe Thornton get into the hockey hall of fame easily despite the fact that he begged, “Can I still play?” You know, like for a year when you’re a quarterback and you’re going down where teams are just saying, “Okay, we’re done.” I mean, yeah, we saw uh like like in my youth, I saw Joe Montana not being Joe Montana, but Joe Montana, the Chiefs may have moved on from him, but he could still say I left on my own accord. Marino, same thing. Uh recently, Drew Brees, same thing. Tom Brady definitely, but Russ is now closer to Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan, two quarterbacks who I respect very much, but that’s not who you want to be closer to. No, good good points uh all across there. Um the the one thing he will have that u quarterbacks do get judged on a little better than than others is he does have at least one Super Bowl win whereas Ryan and Rivers do not. So if you’re kind of kind of putting him in that group there, you know, that’s, you know, a little feather in his cap there, I don’t know that it’s going to make that big of a difference. um especially when you consider that somebody like Matthew Stafford who has much stronger um statistical um accomplishments and a Super Bowl win is still kind of looked at as being somebody that’s probably uh going to have to fight to for a Hall of Fame spot. So Rams aren’t bad. Maybe they might get a second one this year. It’s possible. I’d say in week closing into week four. So, but anyway, a little bit closer than Russ. Yes. Uh, one thing I thought, okay, the the second thing I wanted to go through, and I want to cheer for this guy because I I have no reason not to not to unless you give me a reason, and that’s Shajura Sanders. What I did not know, and this came out uh a few days ago as we’re recording this, uh, in the fifth round, Baltimore were saying, “Okay, we want to draft you.” And he said, “Don’t do it. Are you a [ __ ] [ __ ] I think we know the answer, which is yes. You already fell to the fifth round. You can now study under Lamar Jackson, a player who is a two-time MVP, could have been three-time MVP, a team that knows how to develop quarterbacks, a team that also had DeAndre Hopkins, Ro uh Rocoan Smith, and you said, “Nah, you know what? selfishly. I just want to like be I just want to start because I’m that good. You’re not that good yet. Eventually you could be, but I don’t think you I don’t think you’re smart enough to. And I don’t want to say that. I don’t want to say that. But the evidence keeps popping up. Uh I wanted and I think I said this on this show with with the two of you. I was pissed off when the Saints didn’t take him. Did I say the to the two of you? I think I did. You say a lot of things, Kirk. We can’t remember them all. Thank you. That is something that I thought. God damn it. I just got a shot taken at me and I I don’t know how to sort of like handle that. But Shador clearly wants to be a bigger star than a winner. And let’s let’s look at what he did in Colorado. He was a bigger star than a winner. I hope I’m wrong. I hope he sort of like figures this out. Uh it gives me Fins Carter vibes in a way. And and and I say this because Vince Carter or Vince Young. No, Vince Carter. Vince Carter. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, I was a big Raptors fan. I had season tickets for a while. So, I got to see Vince in his prime and he was a superstar, but he was a selfish guy. All right. And years later, I saw him in a game when I was in Phoenix. It was he was a role player with the Suns playing or was he role player with the Kings? It was Kings versus Suns when they both stunk and I and I got like fifth row center seats for like nothing and there’s Vince sort of like acting like a de facto head coach and it was beautiful to watch and it reminded me of something that Bill Simmons wrote in his big book of basketball where he said like one day Vince is going to regret what he did and he did and if you would have told me that Vince Carter would have been an elder seat man still playing until his early 40s and won a le was it leadership or team? No, he won a teammate of the year would have said there’s no chance after watching him in his prime and I hope this doesn’t happen to Shadur who has Vince level talents in in a football thing. I I don’t want him to fail, but he’s not giving me any reason to think that he’s not going to be Manzel 2.0. Oh, you know, the only thing I can say in his defense on the don’t draft me. Perhaps he wanted to go completely undrafted and be able to pick his what he thinks is his better better spot to to land. Only is the only thing I can kind of think of at that point. You know, you you’ve already farfetched. Hey, I’m I’m trying to give the guy a lifeline here. But but when you have his money, which he did, you know, he had he had a draft room or draft like like backdrop set for all that. Yeah. It was legendary. Yeah. Guess so. Yeah. So like he was one of the few guys who was already a millionaire going into that draft and he was a millionaire before going before NIL. Mhm. So he might Yeah. He never had to worry about money in his life. And maybe that’s why he’s his attitude is a lot different than a lot of these people that have already been humbled and had to kind of climb up through more difficult situations and claw and fight to to get into a division one school or, you know, get into a camp somewhere. But learning under Lamar Jackson, my god, I you know, a player who culturally can speak to him. Yeah. No, don’t don’t don’t misinterpret it. I don’t I don’t think you know what he did was was right. I’m I’m not trying to say that. I’m what I’m pointing out here is, you know, trying to come up with a logical why would he do that other than, you know, ego um type type approach. Yeah. It’s not money. He already has it. Why did that happen? Yeah. Right. Yeah. zooms out if it squirrels over your head. I don’t know. Yeah, we all we talked about it a few weeks ago. What do we expect from the season and and like you Kirk and nothing you said tells me you’re in a different camp either, Chris, but I I think we’re all cheering for the guy. Love to see him succeed. I think he was an exciting player in college. I think that got wrapped up in the whole draft process and the ego just outlived the talent. You know, the talent of the NFL, talent scouts in the NFL. Now, they miss it a lot, especially at the quarterback level. But I think they could just see that here’s somebody who played in a pretty much freestyle offense where he could do whatever he wanted because he was good at it, not because, you know, he was unrestricted, but uh and created plays and all this, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to the NFL. Vince Young, a good example, brought up earlier as a different context, but can’t get to this level. You have to follow systems. It’s a lot of be under center. You got to play action. You’ve got to lead the huddle. And I think a lot of people there was rumors that his interview process was nothing short of a disaster, which is which is fine. Maybe rumors and not even they were lies. But all that doesn’t at the end of the day, you’re going to show up at one of the 32 teams. You’re going to have to follow the system. Very, very few rookie quarterbacks get the opportunity. Clearly in that round of the draft, he was not going to be one of those. So to your point Kirk and Chris is the same that I think you you just land where you land and there’s always opportunities elsewhere. You’re not going to be stuck behind a guy. You Aaron Rogers was stuck behind Favre and and and Flourish. You can spend a few years. I think there was no patient or there seemed to be a demonstrated lack of patience in his approach. Like I’ve been here succeeded there succeeded being the Alamo or whatever. uh I’m ready for the next level and it’s not quite work that way and uh you know he’s had a very successful Hall of Fame father who by all means coached him well brought him along. I have nothing I haven’t heard that many bad things or haven’t heard any bad things about the way he carries himself in person or public. He hasn’t been in trouble with the law, anything like that. So I think I think it’s still TBD. You know, we’re three weeks into the season as Kirk said. He’s not going to play a lot. He’ll he’ll get some he’ll get some reps. There could be injuries. There could be interest uh in in moving. But I I think he I think he made a mistake to your original point, Kirk, and not taking an opportunity to be under a good system and a good coach. Learn from veterans like Hopkins, like Rocoin, like uh even, you know, Lamar, Derrick Henry, all these guys that have been there, done that, been to the playoffs, been MVPs, uh that that he can you just watch and learn. And I think he’s got a little ahead of himself and thinking I can maybe start now. Uh, and it’s, you know, for, again, most rookie quarterbacks, that’s not the case. Yeah. Sorry for the back. I I have no idea why. Uh, clearly I’m not guy. Just trying to show off all those jerseys and jackets back there. Yeah. Yeah. Which would be great if I if it didn’t have the black background, right? But anyhow, yeah. Where’s your medals of uh all your half marathon medals? Where’s that section? I only have one. That’s it. I only have the one medal. I I I could bring out the an old soccer medal I got when I scored a winning goal off my ass because I was afraid. But anyway, we’ll bring out that. Please, next time. I wish I was kidding. That’s actually true. But no, just one last thing on on Shadur, though. Uh he is now sort of like back behind Dylan Gabriel in terms of reps. And is Shador better than Gabriel? Yeah, I think so. He’s got way more talent, but I don’t know about that. But yeah, I Okay, he’s got more he’s got more raw athleticism. Okay, but maybe here’s my best or my favorite inaccurate sports movie uh any given Sunday. Cap’s better than you. Yeah. Yeah. In in reference to Cap to uh Cap Rooney being better than uh Steam Willie Beaman. Steam Bill uh Beaman was g going to be the superstar. It’s amazing how we got so many commercials after only two weeks. But anyway, uh that’s another story for another time. I could do a whole show on why that movie is so wrong and yet I love it so much. Those two things can live in the same existence. Yes, they can. And I don’t know. Shador is going in that area and I I don’t want that for him. I I could no reason for that. Manzel felt like a dick. I kind of didn’t mind it when that happened to him. Does that seem wrong? Yes. No sympathy here. Whereas Shidor just felt like kind of felt like you didn’t know any better how you grew up. I don’t know. I Well, I mean I mean he had he had an adult. He seen he seen uh Shador. Okay. But he had everything sort of a handed to him. B his dad was a goat. Yeah. How is he going to not know any better? He’s not. See, the thing is, that’s the thing. He He needed to be as as he was growing up, he needed to be more humble about everything. And he he wasn’t. And nobody stepped in to correct that. That’s why one of my favorite basketball players right now, and I’m dead serious, Bronny James. Seriously, he’s done. Little Bronny. Little Bronny. Bronny James. I mean, yeah. I mean, like, he has every reason to be a colossal douchebag. And guy, by all means, everyone watching this, listening to this, find me a clip where he is. I don’t think he can. I I honestly didn’t realize he was still in the league. I’m not sure which league, but Well, okay. He’s still he’s still a pro basketball player. Okay. Okay. Anyway, uh last thing I want to sort of like go with uh one more thing on Kawawaii Kawhi Leonard and apologies to the two gentlemen here I’m doing this with. And I said, “Hey, uh what are we going to talk about?” Oh, we’re going to do uh we’re going to do some talk about Kyrie. Kyrie kawaii. Five letters starts with a K. Other than that, they have nothing in common. Thank you. uh we now know a little bit more than we talked about this before. Uh when he was a free agent after the 2019 season when he brought my lovely Raptors a championship, the only one they’ll probably ever have. Of course, if you would have told me that they ever would have won one, I wouldn’t have believed you. But anyway, uh we knew, well, at least us in Toronto knew he probably wasn’t going to come back because he wanted to be in Los Angeles. He was pretty vocal about that and he’s not vocal about anything, right? Makes him a fantastic spokesman for you. But we were pretty sure that we weren’t going to get him. We thought we had a good shot only because from everything that we heard was treated like gold. But at the end of the day, uh, he signed with the Clippers. What we didn’t know then or when we last spoke was that when he spoke with the Lakers, he was looking for partial ownership uh pushed from his uncle Dennis. Uhhuh. Basically, this is impermissible benefits that he was not qualified for. They wanted a house. They wanted a lot of things. And allegedly Jeannie Bus, the then owner, she still the owner. I think so. Thought they sold a couple years ago. Okay. Well, majority stake. Anyways, I think you’re right. Yeah. Long story short, he got laughed at signed with the Clippers. And as we know, money went to a company called Aspiration who signed Kawawaii to be a spokesman. And Kawawaii did the following. That’s where you need your cricket sound effect. Yeah. Yeah. No, I wasn’t even going to like bring out a a sound effect of of the Price’s right horn. [Music] No, didn’t even do that. Did absolutely nothing. And basically every time he was owed money, money seemed to get to this company that did nothing. Also, at what point, gentlemen, is Kawawaii and his uncle complicit with all of this? They know the rules. As I spoke to a good friend of mine, Sean, if you’re watching, how you doing? Uh, and I said this myself, the only thing dumber than a company giving you 50 million to do nothing is not taking it. But every time he was owed money on a company that was nearly dead, money came in from the Clippers, be it Dennis Wong, the minority owner to aspiration and he got it. And my thing here that I want to sort of like go through is last time we spoke about this, I mentioned how Balmer uh uh Steven Balmer was so much more rich than everyone else. And I I didn’t have the thing ready for it, but I do now. So, here’s how much money he Steven Balmer is worth. Uh $142 billion. A little bit more than uh you and Chris combined. Not a little bit. Yeah. Not as much as Elon Musk, but he’s good there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here’s who’s number two. Cleveland Cavalier. This might this might be wrong because I I’ve seen different stats, but either way, the numbers aren’t much different. Dan Gilbert at number two at 25 billion. So, as we go through three through 10, uh, combining that does not equal what Steve has. Long story short, the NBA does not want him to go away. It was super easy for I think when we all remember when the Clippers had their first massive scandal with uh Oh crap, I’m blanking on his name. Donald Sterling. Thank you. Uh Donald Sterling, who was a colossal racist, but even worse for NBA people, incompetent. Let’s be blunt. They were they were more interested that he was incompetent than racist. So, it was super easy for Adam Sber to say, “Okay, we’re banning you. We’re finding you and sell your team.” Cuz he would have been probably near dead last in the desirable ownership list. Balmer’s number one and it’s not even close. Adam Silver and the NBA aren’t going to do a damn thing to Balmer. Nothing. They’re going to give him a slap on a wrist, which might be they will they even do that. I guess they do something publicly. They have something. Yeah. I mean, like like uh giving saying that, okay, we’re going to cost you a few first round picks. They already gave away a bunch of them to Oklahoma City. So, you know, there’s sort of a way to sort of like do this, but I think Adam Silver’s integrity is more on the line than anything else. Kawawaii is going to get away with it. And I still wonder like, you know, that you’re doing something wrong and everything. And I’m going to use an example of something which obviously it’s not the same thing, but I used to sell phones like cell phones long long time ago. And there was a person who well we always had somebody taking care of inventory. Well, the guy who took care of inventory was uh well he started selling phones out of inventory to people who actually worked in the company. Got caught cuz they’re all they’ve all got codes on it. It’s not wasn’t going to last too long like like uh serial numbers and whatnot that that you can sort of track digitally. And one of the people he sold it to, who I I who I worked with, who I knew actually reasonably well, said like, “But I paid for it. It’s stolen.” But I paid for it. It’s stolen. I kind of knew it was stolen. At what point does Kawaii and Uncle Dennis need to be punished, if at all? Well, I think first thing they’re going to try to do is pin it on Show Otani’s interpreter. If that doesn’t work, that was the first thing I thought of. Then uh then I think Uncle Dennis is the one who’s going to be the the um that was the second guy. Was that was the second interpreter? That’s right. He interpreted Japanese for uh fraud on the grass. Love this. Yeah. No, it’s gonna be it. Like you said, it they don’t want to downplay it. Whatever we can do, keep it out of the news. Let’s don’t talk about it as much as possible. Come up with some fines here and there. I agree that at some point when you’re involved in when you’re recipient of the pay, there’s you know where it’s coming from. you know what’s going on and you have a responsibility to report it as it is a league violation competitive league violation because they were able to circumvent certain rules that are put in place to make the league competitive and you know let alone the you know you go money laundering the money traveled across borders it’s a federal offense all these type things same with same with gambling right it’s it’s usually they don’t report on income taxes or the money went somewhere it shouldn’t have it’s not the gambling itself that gets you in the most trouble but yeah the first thing I thought of was the show Otani anything. And as as an Astros fan, we felt like we were the fall persons for a leaguewide scandal that quickly, you know, yeah, Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, don’t worry about them. Let’s focus on the Astros. And then not, Banford even stood up and said, there was eight other teams that we know were doing this. Are you going to investigate them? Yeah, we’re going to look into it. Then of course, they’re all like this and a never mind. Nothing to see here because that could have dragged on for years and years and tarnished the league. Same with the steroid thing. It’s like as quickly as they can get that past it and just say, “Okay, now we’re going to make new rules. Okay, we’re good now.” You know, let’s not go back and and sort it out, which is now paying Hall of Famers or potential Hall of Famers are paying the price for not sorting it out. If perhaps if they’d sorted it out, they would have found everybody was doing it and perhaps certain people that are being pointed at as individuals for whatever reason, not popular. Anyway, long tangent of way of saying that 100% right. They’re they’re going to do exactly what you said. They want this to go away. They they want to talk about the league tip off. They want to talk about the superstars. They want to talk about the defending championship, the young Oklahoma City Thunder. They want to talk about the new talent. They want to talk about the rookies. Uh and so it’s all going to they’re all going to focus on that. And yeah, Uncle Dennis is going to maybe uh take the fall or maybe even not. They may people are going to forget about it pretty quick. People don’t really care about the Clippers that much. Kawhi Leonard is not a superstar player that’s like, “Oh, we’re talking about somebody who’s going to be a top five MVP anymore. Top five MVP guy.” So, it’ll it’s going to flame out because the the league is going to the league’s media machine’s going to move on very very quickly and and most people are going to forget about it. Not not the three of us. We’ll keep talking about it every week if we have to. Nah, not every week. At some point, I don’t care. But but yeah, I mean like like obviously like and I’ve said this uh two weeks ago. Okay. Yeah, I’ve I’ve really want to promote my company. I need a top 10 NBA player to sort of like help me out with that. Let me pick the mute. The guy that personality jumps right through the TV screen into your living room every time he plays. Yeah. I mean, Kawhi Leonard and I I I feel like I’ve said this about Naomi Osaka. Uh, if this will sound awful, but whatever. Uh, if I were to find out that Kawawaii or Naomi had an IQ of 140, I’d believe you. If I found out that they had an IQ of 70, I’d believe you because I know nothing about them because they don’t talk and can’t talk. Doesn’t mean they’re not smart. Just means that they don’t talk much. That’s okay. Fun fact, Naomi Osaka, two time sports woman of the week. And probably not going to be eligible for the United States Athletic Hall of Fame that I forgot to promote because she represents Japan. Check that out at www.theusa.com. Man, I I planted that really badly, guys. I should have done that right at the beginning, but I was promoting your thing, Dave. Thank you very much. I appreciate the muchos gusto as they say in your state because I think you’ve been taken over. It’s not far from it. Okay, I’m not going to go any further because I could do something here in Canada, but I won’t. Uh h you know with that I do feel that the and I think I think Dave what you said is sort of like right u Balmer first off because a lot of his money comes from Google. Gee I can’t imagine how he could sort of like suppress this a little bit. Uh B because Kawawaii is not a big guy in terms of well you he’s a bigger name on the court than he is off of it. It’s going to go away. And also realistically football is just so big. This has not gotten the attention that it really should have relatively speaking. to the point where basketball and Chris and I, we’ve talked about this a lot, you and I, how I I think Dave, you were part of that, but I think it was mostly Chris and I going through that basketball’s taken a pounding with LeBron, who I think is overall a net positive, but him being a flopper, doesn’t sell the game. uh Steph Curry going everything from the behind the arc. It’s exciting for a while, but we all miss the physicality and there is no superstar under 30. We could say Sheay Shay’s not a superstar. I love Sheay. Obviously, I’m a little biased. I’m Canadian, but he’s not a transcendent superstar in the league. It takes a while to get to that level. You know, they probably said the same things about some other guys, so I’m not jumping to that full conclusion yet, but right now he’s not right. Yeah. Right. Right now he’s not. And we’re you the three of us were old enough to remember when MJ dominated at 25 when Shaq was a god. There is the only gods now if you want to call LeBron stuff a god have a combined age of near 80 and that’s only going to go so far. Hockey has a shot again. Here I have a Tex in here with this who knows so much about hockey, right? uh that it would not surprise me if in five years hockey supplants basketball at number three. I don’t know by what measure popularity uh re I think basketball’s going up and up and up. Their revenues women’s basketball is men’s isn’t. Okay. I you look at the the TV packages are getting larger and larger. the eyes on the TVs are far you you can even argue baseball which is my favorite sport being number four but uh but to me the NBA has got it going they they I’ve always they got the best revenue model because they have the same revenue model as hockey but they only got to pay about half the players and only about three of those guys need to even be good to have a good team and have 82 games hockey all the all the local in my opinion basketball’s football is the handicap because they only got 17 games. They got to pay 45 players. You got to have about 10 to 15 good ones, eight on both sides of the ball uh to to compete. But um I’ve got a hockey bias as Winnie who’s named after the Winnipeg Jets as reminded me there there’s basketball players making more money than show Otani and I barely know their barely know their name. That is true. just I guess it just feels like it’s on the downswing and maybe I’m looking I’m projecting as opposed to like about how it is now. I know I think you’re right. I think there’s been plenty of um recent articles showing that the popularity at least um of people wanting you to watch like you know the you compare like the finals and you know going back years and years it’s it’s not like it was in the 80s um when you had the uh the the Lakers, Celtics, 76ers really kind of the the big three there. Um people actually wanted to sit down and watch the game. Now they feel like it’s I think it’s becoming more and more a niche sport every year. Um maybe maybe hockey if uh something something good like the uh the Olympics coming up here could uh help springboard it. Um we’ll see. Uh okay. But uh yeah, football is definitely uh king and will be for the foreseeable future. H could be right. I I I do have a Canadian hockey bias. With that said, uh there’s so many other things that we do here at Not Hall of Fame. Check out all those shows. Uh check out all the updates that we do. Check out the other shows. Check out, but mostly www.theusa.com, the United States Athletic Hall of Fame, where we put in a lot of work, a lot of work to sort of uh put together the best athletes in the United States, regardless of their sport. Guys, vote. Vote because it’s the only thing that I can think of, maybe I’m wrong here, where it’s open, transparent, and we’re going to tell you how it finished every year. And we have a lot of people who I put in high regard, including these two gentlemen right here, who help us decide who’s going to be part of that. So, help us out. Yeah. Unlike uh elections in the for the president, no minimum age, you know, 12 years old, you can vote, right? Although you do have to be 50 to sort of like qualify. So, but voters, that’s who we’re recording here. Well, that that that is true. I mean, like I I I do know the average age of the people who sort of like voting. That’s about it. Check. Hope they vote for Grover, Cleveland, Alexander, and Christy Matthew. You could. Jimmy Fox, Mike Schmidt. Yeah, you absolutely could. Reggie White and and that’s Willie Musone. Yeah, Willie is not doing too good. So, any pool fan here, uh he has not done good in week one, year one or year two or year three. So, if you’re really big on pool and you’re hey, do it now because or do it next year, whichever it all it all works out. Uh, yeah, that brings us to a close here. So, wherever you are, wherever you may be, make today count because unless some of those sci-fi movies are right, this day does not come again. Take care, everybody.
